1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and an image forming system, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus and an image forming system which are communicable with communication terminals, such as cell-phones, etc., by wireless.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, in a convenience store or the like, a coin-operated image forming apparatus, for example, a copying machine provided with a coin box is installed. The coin box is a device which permits operation of the image forming apparatus within a deposit in the coin box made by a user. Such a coin-operated image forming apparatus is, for example, disclosed by Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-46226 (Reference 1).
Also, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-276017 (Reference 2) discloses an accounting machine for managing deposits made by a plural number of users. In the accounting machine according to Reference 2, in order to distinguish deposits made by different users from each other, IDs of the respective users and the balances in the respective users' deposits are related to each other and are recorded in a table stored in the accounting machine. More specifically, before operating the image forming apparatus, each user inputs his/her ID into the accounting machine and deposits money in a coin box. Then, the accounting machine records the deposit and the user's ID in the table with the deposit and the ID related to each other. When the user starts operating the image forming apparatus, the user inputs his/her ID to register a printing process in the accounting machine. The accounting machine receives registration of printing processes from other users, who have made deposits in the accounting machine, with the printing processes related to the respective users' IDs. The printing processes are registered and stored in the order of receipt, and the image forming apparatus carries out the printing processes in the order of registration. Thereafter, the accounting machine deducts the charges for the respective printing processes from the deposits of the corresponding users.
Further, in recent years, with popularization of cell-phones, various systems which permits cooperation of image forming apparatuses and cell-phones with each other have been suggested. In such a system, for example, an image taken by a camera installed in a cell-phone is transmitted to an image forming apparatus by wireless, and the image forming apparatus prints a photo. Also, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-254571 (Reference 3) discloses a system wherein a cell-phone sends an internet address of a server stored with photo data and/or text data to an image forming apparatus, and the image forming apparatus makes an access to the internet address to download the photo data and/or the text data and prints a photo and/or a text in accordance with the photo data and/or the text data.
In such a system for permitting cooperation of image forming apparatuses and cell-phones with each other, however, there is a problem that a user other than a user which has deposited for a printing process can print a photo and/or a text. More specifically, in the system, data and a print command can be sent from a cell-phone to an image forming apparatus by wireless. Therefore, after a user is permitted to operate an image forming apparatus by depositing money in a coin box and before the user makes a data transmission command or a print command, if the image forming apparatus receives data and a print command sent from another user's cell-phone by wireless, the image forming apparatus will print the data. In this case, although the former user deposited money to operate the image forming apparatus, the latter user spends the money.
In the accounting machine disclosed by Reference 2, the amount of money deposited by a user and the user's ID are recorded in a table with the deposited amount and the user's ID related to each other, and charges for a printing process are deducted from the user's deposit. The accounting machine, therefore, does not have the above-described problem that a deposit made by a user may be spent by another user.
In the accounting machine, however, a user must input his/her ID twice, namely, at the time of depositing money and at the time of starting operation of the image forming apparatus, which is troublesome.